The Law

The word "Torah" (תּוֹרָה, torah) derives from yarah (יָרָה, to throw, to shoot, to point, to teach) in its causative form: to cause someone to know the way. Torah is the pointing, the instruction of YHWH for his people's flourishing. The Greek Septuagint translated Torah as nomos (νόμος, law, rule, norm), and from there the Latin Vulgate rendered it lex (law), from which English gets "the Law." The translation is not wrong, but it narrows a rich concept down to one of its features.

Torah in the Hebrew Bible encompasses: (1) The narrative revelation of who YHWH is and what he has done (Genesis through Deuteronomy as story); (2) the covenant commands that order Israel's life in response to that revelation (the Ten Words, the case laws, the worship ordinances); (3) the wisdom by which YHWH's people navigate the created order (Proverbs as Torah in a different key); and (4) the prophetic application of the covenant to new historical situations (the prophets standing in the Mosaic covenantal tradition).

To say "I love your Torah" (Psalm 119:97, "How I love your Torah! It is my meditation all the day") is to express love for YHWH's whole teaching presence, not merely a legal rule-set. The Torah is the revelation of the covenant God to the covenant people.

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible: 176 verses, each grouped in 22 sets of 8, one set for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, an acrostic that exhausts the language expressing devotion to YHWH's word. Eight synonyms for Torah cycle through the psalm: torah (teaching), edut (testimony/decree), piqqud (precept), huqqah (statute), mitsvah (commandment), mishpat (judgment/ordinance), davar (word/thing), and imrah (utterance/promise).

"How I love your Torah! It is my meditation all the day" (119:97). "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (119:105). "More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb" (combining 19:10 with 119's theme). "The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever" (119:160).

The psalmist's relationship with Torah is not the anxiety of a subject before a legal code. It is the delight of a disciple before the teaching of the beloved teacher. Torah is the medium by which YHWH speaks; the one who loves YHWH loves the way he speaks.

"Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made... So then, the law was our paidagogos (παιδαγωγός, pedagogue/guardian/custodian) until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a paidagogos" (Galatians 3:19, 24-25).

The paidagogos in the Greek-Roman world was not a teacher, he was a slave-guardian who escorted the child to school and kept him in line. The role was temporary by design: when the child came of age, the paidagogos was dismissed. Paul's argument: the Mosaic law served as the paidagogos for the period between Sinai and Christ, keeping the covenant people under supervision until the arrival of the promised offspring (the singular seed of Abraham in whom all nations would be blessed, Genesis 12:3 → Galatians 3:16).

This is not an argument that the law is bad, Paul explicitly asks and answers: "Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not!" (3:21). The law had a genuine function. But that function was temporary and preparatory. Now that Christ has come, believers are "in Christ Jesus" (3:26-28) and the paidagogos has been dismissed. The law's preparatory role has been fulfilled, not abandoned.

"What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'" (Romans 7:7). The law's diagnostic function: it names sin. Before the law, sin was present but unlabeled. The commandment "you shall not covet" reveals that covetousness is a violation of the covenant. The law does not create the sin; it exposes it.

Romans 7:12: "So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." The problem is not the law, the law is YHWH's holy instruction. The problem is the sin that uses the good law to produce death (7:13). "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (7:15). The law reveals the split in the human person: willing the good but unable to achieve it through the flesh.

The resolution is in Romans 8: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God has done: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (8:3-4). What the law demanded and could not produce (the flesh was too weak), the Spirit produces. The goal of Torah, a people walking in YHWH's ways, is achieved in the Spirit-indwelt community.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill (plero-sai, πληρῶσαι) them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished" (Matthew 5:17-18). The Sermon on the Mount's opening of the Torah section is decisive: Jesus comes to fulfill, not abolish.

The Greek pleroo (to fill, to fulfill, to complete) is significant: Jesus does not come to cancel the Torah but to bring it to its full meaning. The six antitheses that follow (5:21-48, "You have heard it said... but I say to you") are not Jesus contradicting the law. They are Jesus extending the law from external compliance to internal transformation. Murder is not just the act, it is the anger. Adultery is not just the act, it is the desire. Oath-taking is replaced by simple truth. The antitheses move the law from the minimum standard to the maximum intent.

Jesus is himself the embodiment of Torah: John 1:14 (the Logos-became-flesh) and Matthew 1:23 (Immanuel, God with us) place Jesus in the tradition of the divine presence with the people of Israel. Where Israel failed to keep the covenant (Hosea 11:1, "Out of Egypt I called my son" = Israel), the Son of God succeeds (Matthew 2:15 applying Hosea 11:1 to Jesus). The Torah finds its perfect keeper in Christ, and through him in those who walk by the Spirit.

The Sanctum treats Torah with the respect the Psalmist showed it, not as a legal burden to be escaped but as YHWH's instruction, his revealing of himself to his people. In Christ the law finds its fulfillment; in the Spirit its demands find their completion in those who walk in him. The Sanctum's biblical studies engage the law honestly, its commands, its narrative, its wisdom, and its prophetic application, as part of the whole counsel of YHWH.